Does Purevpn Keep Logs – PureVPN Review – 2019

BackgroundDoes Purevpn Keep Logs

PureVPN has been providing VPN services since 2007 It is not surprising that it now maintains a long list of features: 2,000+ self-managed servers around 180+ locations, a wide choice of protocols, torrent support, DNS and IPv6 leak protection, a smart kill switch, five devices enabled and payment via Bitcoin should you need it. Does Purevpn Keep Logs

Unusual Extras include’split tunneling’ (you choose which traffic goes via the VPN, and uses your ISP) and the ability to create an instant Wi-Fi VPN hotspot on your laptop, and connect more devices through that.

The Company offers dedicated programs for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android and Linux, extensions for Chrome and Firefox, and more downloads and tutorials that will help you set it up on routers, Kodi, Android TV, Amazon’s Fire TV Stick and more.

PureVPN PureVPN subscription options:

12 month plan – $5.75 a month ($69 total price )

The Monthly plan is typical value at $11 (#8.40), however, the annual program is only a monthly $2.99 (#2.30), a excellent deal.

This Drops to a monthly $1.32 (#1) should you pay for 5 decades upfront, a total of 79 (#61). We would suggest signing up for that long, but the cost is so low, you may think that it’s worthwhile. Personal Internet Access delivers a decent two-year plan for $2.91 (#2.24) per month, for instance, but that is still $70 (#54) in complete, less. Even if you only use PureVPN for a couple of years, you’re getting price.

The By employing some marketing trickery this good belief is spoilt by company a little. Each plan has a’past sold’ indicator that informs you if someone signed up, and it.

This is Meant to explain to you how popular the service is, but we are not sure the figures are real. We refreshed the page a few times, and seen in different browsers, and also the’sold’ figures varied widely. They behave as though they’re chosen randomly, instead of corresponding to any actual world events.

PureVPN does not promote a trial. We dug deep and found a webpage for something called a’trial account’, but that is somewhat misleading. It’s really only a commercial program in which you pay a non refundable $2.50 (#2) for 3 days of service.

A guarantee is for your Commercial plans, which is more generous than many. PureVPN’s refund policy used to include some sneaky circumstances where you wouldn’t get your money back in the event that you’d connected more than a hundred occasions, or used more than 3GB of data transfer, but we were pleased to observe these have been dropped. It’s currently advertised as a’no questions asked, secure, stress-free’ money-back guarantee, so if you are miserable, simply send an email and request a refund. Does Purevpn Keep Logs

Programs

Handing Over your money to PureVPN is unusually easy, since the company supports just about every single payment format there is: credit card, PayPal, Bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies (through CoinPayments), AliPay, various gift cards, and over 150 other payment procedures via the Paymentwall platform.

After Parting with your cash, download links point one to programs for Windows, Mac, iOS and Android, the browser extensions and more. We caught the Windows customer, also there arrived a email with login details as it downloaded.

Setup Was easy, and after a speedy launch, the Windows client prompted us to select one of five modes: Stream, Internet Freedom, Security/Privacy, File Sharing and Dedicated IP. We suspect most people will wonder whether to select Internet Freedom or even Security/Privacy, and there is no guidance.

The Support website told us that choosing a manner would optimize PureVPN’s settings . Picking Security/Privacy would prioritize safety above all else, but the Streaming and File Sharing manners would optimize for speed.

VPN This approach might be appreciated by Beginners since it means that they don’t have to know and tweak the underlying settings. Since there’s no indication of what each mode does but specialists are less likely to approve. There is nothing wrong with task-based style selection, but we would like a clear display of those settings that are unsuitable for each style, so experienced users may understand the effects of their selection.

After Selecting a style, you’re in a position to select locations. This has lots of functionality, allowing you to navigate locations by countries or cities, search by name, see ping times, or make favorites for speedy recall afterwards.

Alternatively, Choosing a Purpose option displays a list of tasks you may want to carry out — unblocking Netflix or other streaming sites, using VoIP, obtaining social networking sites or anything — and also you can in theory choose one of them, and permit PureVPN to choose a server for you.

Connect To a server and the client displays your connection status. There is also an optional bandwidth graph showing your data transfers. You won’t want it, but it’s good to see PureVPN making the effort.

The Customer makes smart of use of alarms to make sure you know what’s happening. Choose a place as long as your Windows client is the foreground application, it won’t waste your time together with notifications. But if you switch to a different application, the client notices, and a pop-up window appears to let you know when it disconnects and connects.

A bonus Gravity feature blocks access to known sites. We would always prefer to buy this type of attribute from a specialist security company, however, Gravity is a lot smarter than the majority of the VPN-related contest. In addition to blocking harmful links, it can turn on Safe Search for the primary search engines, block entire categories of website, whitelist sites you always wish to access, and blacklist sites you do not. Oh, and it may block advertisements . Does Purevpn Keep Logs

The Settings Box is a highlight, particularly for experienced users, since it is absolutely stuffed with unusual and interesting extras.

The Client doesn’t only have choices to launch for instance, system start and auto-connect. It may automatically open your default browser once you’re protected.

Want a Different protocol? PureVPN allows you to Pick from OpenVPN TCP/UDP, PPTP, L2TP, SSTP and IKEV. There is also an automated alternative that the customer suggests offers the very best speed and security, but from what we can see, that is not true: it only cycles through another protocols until it finds one that works.

Split Tunneling allows you to send just the visitors of specified apps through your VPN. That requires more time to install, and you need to be very sure which programs you want to redirect, but it can also optimize performance by limiting your data transfer needs.

The VPN Hotspot is an additional, configuring a hotspot which effectively turns the host computer to a restricted VPN router. Once it is enabled, you’ll be able to use your telephone, tablet computer or other devices to get online via the host’s PureVPN connection.

Along with the List continues, with IPv6 leak security, an unusually configurable kill switch, along with a multi-port option which chooses the best port, avoiding any closed or throttled alternatives. You may opt to use a non-NAT system to acquire a special IP address, port forwarding is available if you require this, along with a Support section does not only link to the site: it eases creating a service ticket from inside the customer.

Even though There is lots of power , the port is a mess. There are normal buttons, radio buttons, icons, links and sidebars, they do not necessarily work as you’d expect, and although we figured out how to navigate across the machine, it never felt natural or comfortable.

Still, The client did a good job for us, blocking DNS and WebRTC leaks, with the kill switch successfully killing our internet access if the VPN connection fell. If you’ll use a number of their client added features, it might appeal.

We took a Look at PureVPN’s Android program, and it was the exact same story as the Windows version. After picking a’Mode’ (not sure why)we were able to pick cities, states, or pick a Goal (optimized for China, unblock this or that streaming assistance, and so on). It’s more awkward to use than the average VPN app, but you’ll figure it out easily enough.

What’s More intriguing is that the Android app does not drop the majority of the settings and choices, which is what we generally see of the desktop. It’s a very similar feature set, such as a selection of protocol (OpenVPN TCP/UDP or IKEv2), a kill button, split tunneling, port forwarding, Gravity URL filtering, and more. If you will utilize all that functionality or some, it’s well worth a try. Does Purevpn Keep Logs

Privacy and logging

In a Review we pointed out that PureVPN made a big deal of its’zero log’ policy. Nevertheless, the small print said there was a session logging, which appeared to include time you connect to a host, your incoming IP address as well as the entire bandwidth used.

This Is not a minor detail. Back in October 2017 reports appeared of a man being arrested on suspicion of running”a comprehensive cyberstalking effort”, in part according to PureVPN records showing its services were accessed from originating IPs including the accused man’s home and workplace. The’zero log’ VPN retained some sort of logs, after all, and these were able to help link internet activities to a particular account.

PureVPN Type of reacted to the Post, where the company pointed out that it did not maintain full logs, like your browsing history, and it hadn’t done anything to violate its privacy policy, in which the session logging was mentioned.

This Does not tackle the dilemma of the firm described itself as maintaining’zero logs’ at the primary part of the website, though, when this turned out not to be completely correct. That is also not a trivial point. Logging policies are based almost entirely on trust, and a VPN isn’t inclined to be reliable if it is seen to mislead users or bury the fact of a scenario in the small print.

PureVPN has updated its privacy Policy, which now includes possibly the most explicit no-logging sentence we have ever observed:’we don’t keep any record of your browsing activities, link logs, documents of the VPN IPs assigned to youpersonally, your original IPs, your connection time, the history of your surfing, the sites you visited, your incoming traffic, the content or information you obtained, or the DNS queries generated by you.’

The Policy also clarifies the minimal link data it will record –‘We know the day you connected to a specific VPN location and from that Internet Service Provider’ — and covers lots of other vital issues in a clear and readable way.

The good news, then, is that PureVPN’s present Privacy policy looks good and says all the ideal things. It’s much better than most of the competition. However, the catch is that the narrative will understandably lead some folks to wonder whether they could trust what the company says. We can’t tell you what to think, but it’s well worth checking out equally PureVPN’s original blog defense and its current privacy policy before you make up your mind.

Netflix

PureVPN Creates more of an attempt to support site unblocking than almost all of the competition. The company does not just make airy promises on the website and then forget about them afterwards, it includes specific support for streaming inside its apps, in theory allowing you to access Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, BBC iPlayer and a plethora of other services from where you are in the world. Does Purevpn Keep Logs

We Double-clicked that the BBC option, and watched as the customer connected and exhibited an’err-network-changed’ message. What? This seemed like a severe difficulty, but the browser had only detected the shift in our network settings as the customer connected, and after this was complete, the BBC iPlayer site opened and opened content as normal.

It had been Much the same story with Netflix. The customer launched our browser until the link was complete, thus we saw the exact same error message, but this disappeared mechanically, and we were free to browse and stream whatever Netflix articles we liked.

You’re Not limited to the services built to PureVPN’s apps, of course. YouTube wasn’t contained on the list, for instance, but linking to a US server got us .

Performance

Our Performance tests involve running custom software which links to servers, checking download speeds, ping time, place and much more. Regrettably, we could not get this working with PureVPN, or figure out why (whether that is our fault or theirs, we can not be convinced ).

But even If we did, an unusual warning in the print explains that consumers aren’t permitted to have over 200 sessions every day. That won’t concern most folks, but it will become an issue when you are running intensive VPN benchmarks. Does Purevpn Keep Logs

We fell Back on our old manual way of connecting via clients and assessing the results from several speed checking sites, including SpeedTest.net, Fast.com and TestMy.net. This will not give us as much information to work with, but there’s still enough to get a feel for what the service can provide.

Our local UK servers diverse a little more than normal, but still gave us decent rates of connection that was 75Mbps.

Close Speeds were also mildly below average. Netherlands connections can often deliver the very same rates for us as UK servers, but here they have been typically 35-45Mbps.

US Performance ranged from approximately 30Mbps in the coast, to 50Mbps. That’s far from the fastest we’ve seen, but unless you’re likely 24 hours of intensive torrenting, it’s most likely not going to cause you some issues.

As usual, Speeds tailed off drastically for the places that were more distant or less common. For example, New Zealand averaged 12Mbps, Vietnam was 10Mbps, 1Mbps was barely reached by Taiwan, also China ranged down to a speed that the net stalled mid-test. That puts the magnitude of PureVPN’s network into perspective (having loads of servers doesn’t matter if they’re unusably slow), but if you’re only planning to use the major places, it won’t matter very much.

On a few Occasions, our PureVPN Windows customer wasn’t able to connect to our test server. The Cancel button did not work, but the issue here is that the connection didn’t time out for several minutes, although that’s not uncommon.

What You Need To Know About PureVPN

The Test of Speed — How Quick is PureVPN?

Let us start off by making one thing clear, i.e. whatever VPN service you use, the internet speed is going to take a hit. That hit is a result of the additional security measures used to encrypt and protect your identity. The vast majority of VPN services make every attempt. Thus, unlike what many folks are going to have you think like using dial-up, it’s not likely to be.

PureVPN, when compared to other comparable VPN services, happens to be much faster. So it does live up to the promise of being the fastest in the industry. Does Purevpn Keep Logs

The way we compared and tested the operation was by utilizing Ookala’s nifty speed testing site and app. Then we ran the speed test on both the global and domestic servers. We compared the results and that is the way we discovered PureVPN to be quicker.

PureVPN has a domestic latency of a mere 6.7% percent. During our evaluations that were downloading, as a matter of fact, PureVPN improved rates which by our calculations is an percent. We discovered that rival VPN providers were much slower. Some individuals suspect were throttling download speeds perhaps because they didn’t wish to stress their servers.

When it comes to uploads, PureVPN did not really boost it did with downloads, but it took a mere 4.5percent percent hit. If anything this is still among the very best scores we’ve seen from a VPN supplier.

Throughout our international speed tests, the latency increased by 200 percent. Though download rates were still a whopping 403.8% better than any of the competing products I tested it against. The uploads were 22.7% percentage slower which is second best compared to possibly Hotspot Shield which enhanced the upload rate by 1.4percent percent.

A Mind-Blowing Number of Servers

The map on the left allows you bypass the program’s default recommendation and decide on a server on your own. Keep in mind that by default PureVPN selects the fastest server which is the nearest one. When in China I noticed that it kept picking up servers in Hong Kong by default that’s not nearby but also the simple fact that Hong Kong’s cyberspace is much less rigorously censored as mainland China.

PureVPN has over 2000 servers that are spread across 140 countries and 180 locations around the globe. Servers are located in Central America, Asia, South America, North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. You might believe that PureVPN just has servers in countries which block or don’t censor sites, but you would be wrong. Servers in Russia, Turkey, and China are there in case you wanted them.

It Does Not Slow Down Your Online

Over time VPN providers, in general, have received bad press for notoriously slowing down net speeds that users have not been happy with obviously. Interestingly, there are many VPN services that slow down what might be internet that is slow. Fortunately, with PureVPN that’s not the case even in the event that you use it to stream Netflix, YouTube, etc..

Along with not slowing down your internet, PureVPN offers a number of other attributes like robust servers which can be found around the globe and which scored exceptionally throughout our rate tests. Then there is also the simple fact that encryption is used by them, together with programs for Android and iOS devices. Even though there are more reasons to think about PureVPN as we’ll examine in detail below. Does Purevpn Keep Logs

Excellent Set of Features and straightforward

I have used dozens of VPN apps over time, and PureVPN is like a breath of fresh air. It is very easy to use and compared to the previous time I used the program its now geared towards individuals that are new to using VPNs. The moment PureVPN loads you’re motivated to pick from five choices, i.e. Security, Internet Freedom, Stream, Remote/Dedi IP (this feature offers you a dedicated IP) and Document Sharing. An experience that is based on the option chosen is then delivered by the app.

Another thing I enjoy about PureVPN is that all the features are to the stage. For instance, their Web Freedom feature enables you to select what area you need to get Netflix out of, such as from the UK, Australia, etc.. In which it is otherwise blocked, Netflix can be even accessed by you from China.

In comparison with the last time I used PureVPN this time around it felt zippier. The interface has been bright, with pictures some of which could be difficult to read on a smaller screen. Once you are connected to a private server, you’ll observe the duration of your session, connection status, and the IP address.

The visitors chart gives you a good sense of just how much bandwidth has been consumed, which is useful for anyone on a metered online connection. But it is very important to mention for all those worrying about information caps which PureVPN does not have any. You’re only limited to what the ISP has in store for you!

Like most other competing VPN services, you choose the server and the nation it’s based in. You may search for servers and click them to connect. Some servers based on which you are located are currently going to be faster than others because of latency.

You can also choose which protocols to use. Pick between OpenVPN, IKEv2, SSTP, PPTP, and L2TP. There is PureVPN’s own stealth protocol that according to the provider ensures the ideal anonymity. Since people like me have a difficult time comprehending which protocols to select, PureVPN makes it simple by providing a rate and security rating for each. The important point to note here is that as the safety improves the speed slows down. You’ll need to hit a compromise between both based on what is needed. By default, the software chooses a protocol. Most people who do not work for the CIA (pun intended) will be fine using the default option. Does Purevpn Keep Logs

Hands-on and First Impressions

We’ve admittedly used PureVPN earlier, but following a hiatus or perhaps two years we pretty much forgot how things worked. Choose a password and you are going to need to enter your email once you’ve decided to subscribe and download their software. Perhaps confusingly and interestingly, this is not what you’ll use to the program to log-in, but it is used for charging purposes.

Once subscribers have paid, they receive an email with the username and password in plain text. We’ve used other VPNs using the same system to payment identities out of user identities which guarantees anonymity that was better. Yet we think that it may be confusing to first-time users but. Additionally, in our experience the email tends to land for some reason, so make sure that you check that too.

Support

PureVPN has a support Website with a number of troubleshooting guides and tutorials. The opening page points you Setup Guide For Users in China and the best way to see Netflix US, for instance, and most of these segments include more information than you’d expect.

The Installation Guide includes subsections for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, Smart TV, Routers and Devices, as an instance, as well as a number of those individual sections have more content than the whole support site of lesser VPNs.

We are, Though It’s an impressive amount of work Unsure how reliable and effective it may be. We assessed the guide OpenVPN setup manual, for instance, and found it failed. OpenVPN wasn’t installed there were no PureVPN settings files, and there was no information from the guide to help us figure out that.

If the Site can’t help, you increase a support ticket from within the customer or can send an email. We took the service and the ticket route performed with the aid team sending a useful and friendly answer to our test question to us in barely more than an hour.

Alternatively, You’re able to use live chat on the website. We discovered it might take a minute or two to receive a response, and even then, the agent didn’t provide us the exact same level of help as we’d received to our query. PureVPN could not get close to the level of chat service we’d received from competitors like ExpressVPN, then, but we’re still glad the choice is available. With email support to hand, any live chat problems you might have probably are not too important. Does Purevpn Keep Logs

Last verdict

PureVPN Comes bundled with a heap of features, which can be surprising looking at the purchase price. These don’t always work as you might anticipate and there are tons of usability issues with the apps — but demanding users who’ll utilize this level of VPN power should give PureVPN an appearance.